Research Papers

Exploring the nature of rural energy transition in India :Insights from case studies of eight villages in Bihar

Goswami Anandajit, Bandyopadhyay Kaushik Ranjan, Kumar Atul , 2017

International Journal of Energy Sector Management

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of rural energy transition in cooking options in
India. Although India is aiming to achieve a double-digit economic growth, a large share of rural households still rely on firewood for cooking which not only has serious repercussions of increasing indoor pollution but also has a concomitant adverse effect on women and child morbidity and mortality. However, transition to clean energy options like improved cookstoves for these households may not be necessarily linear. It is often driven or resisted
by latent factors such as caste, trust, social capital, information flow, social positioning of clusters that are deeply embedded in the social and cultural norms and values specific to local rural contexts. This has been shown in the present case study that pertains to eight villages in the remote and deprived Purnea district of Bihar and the need
for internalizing them in the macro energy policymaking has been established in the paper.